Here we have a super cool original Bigsby 1958 3 x PAF pickup “Black Beauty” Les Paul Custom that just screams Rock 'n' Roll!!

In 1979 it was bought by the second owner at Gruhn Guitars in Nashville USA. The guitar was offered as a "refin" by Gruhn and the blacklight shows some nice yellowing. There are no traces of any breaks, cracks or repairs other then the refin and the filled studholes underneath the Bigsby. The groundwire channel running from the pots cavity to the the strap button end Bigsby rim looks perfectly factory so we can tell it is an original Bigsby Les Paul Custom, most likely converted to stoptail in its earlier life and then retrofitted with a Bigsby again and refinished before Gruhn sold it in 1979.

It is mostly original sporting 3 original long magnet PAF sticker pickups (B: 8.31k M: 8.24k N: 8.12k Ohm) with non original AREA59 Aged repro gold covers, the 4 original Centralab pots dated 134808 (week 8, 1958), 2 original bumblebee capacitors, gold plated hardware, early 60's wire ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge with brass saddles, original B7 Bigsby, original black bell top hat knobs, backplates, toggle switch, pickguard and bracket, trussrod cover, PAT Pend USA Grover tuners, 1-piece mahogany body with a carved mahogany top, mahogany neck with a 42mm nut width and a lovely 50's chunky but not too fat profile, refret and binding professionally redone with fret nibs.

This Black Beauty plays very easy and smooth. Tonally, this super player is about as vocal and alive as it can get, with an very resonant body and dynamic response, producing a loud and rich sound acoustically. When plugged, the neck position is super rich, warm and articulate, never losing composure or note definition under a heavy attack. Very full and powerful! The middle position provides cut and clarity with the bridge and middle pickup out of phase producing a nice "quack" and push in the upper midrange, just as it came from the factory in 1958. Think "You Really Got Me" from The Kinks. Easy to change to a normal 3 pickup setup by flipping the magnet but as it is all original we prefer to leave it all original and to decide for the next owner. The bridge pickup is strong and powerful with a big cutting mids rock punch and an extremely vocal high end, perfect for those soaring single note runs with waves of harmonic content. The neck is a nice 42mm at the nut and not as big as your typical 58 Les Paul, but it feels rather more like a 59-ish neck.

All in all this is a fantastic "player grade" guitar that is very much original and sounds like you are straight back into the 60's!!

Comes in a standard recent Les Paul case. The original Lifton 50's case will cost extra.